daliel's Gallery

Front of daliel's Bookstore and Gallery in Berkeley, California, 1946

daliel's Gallery (stylized with a lowercase 'd', and sometimes just 'daliel') was a display and performance space in the San Francisco Bay Area in California in the 1940s and 1950s; the building also contained daliel's Bookstore. George Leite opened daliel's at 2466 Telegraph Avenue between Dwight and Haste Streets in Berkeley, as a combination bookstore and art gallery in 1945, naming both after a half-brother in Portugal he had never met, Dalael Leite.^[1]

The bookstore was also the home of Circle Magazine^[2] and Circle Editions, the publishing ventures Leite established at the same time.

Artists featured in the gallery included painters, sculptors and printmakers, as well as jewellers, musicians, and modern dancers.^[3] These included painter Zahara Schatz, jazz musician Dave Brubeck from Concord, sculptor Jean Varda, and jeweler Peter Macchiarini. One show in 1950 was by a group of nuns from Oregon who had been taught in a summer class at their college by Jean Varda.^[4] The store closed in 1952 several years after the magazine ceased publication.^[5]

Interior view of daliel's Gallery looking toward SF Bay
Interior view of daliel's looking toward Telegraph Avenue
George Leite and Anaïs Nin at booksigning at daliel's
Interior view of daliel's Gallery looking toward Telegraph Avenue
Construction barricade by Bezalel Schatz at daliel's in 1946

Partial list of Artists Exhibited[]

Chiura Obata – water colors
Dave Brubeck – jazz chamber music
David Park (painter) – paintings
Elmer Bischoff – paintings
Eugene Berman Berman Brothers – paintings
George Albert Harris – paintings
Jean Varda – mosaics and collages
Man Ray – photographs
Marc Chagall – prints
Peter Macchiarini – jewelry
Robert P. McChesney – drawings and paintings
Zahara Schatz – plastic laminations and paintings

Chiura Obata exhibit 1949 promotional print
Robert McChesney exhibit 1950 promotional card
Emerson Elementary School student exhibit 1948 promotional card
Basil Marros exhibit 1947 promotional card
Zahara Schatz exhibit 1949 promotional card

References[]

^ "Oral history interview with Nancy Leite". daliel.leitefamily.net. May 5, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
^ Davidson, Michael (1991). The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-521-42304-5.
^ "Berkeley Daily Gazette". January 12, 1947. p. 11.
^ "Berkeley Daily Gazette". May 4, 1950. p. 8.
^ Brady, Mildred (April 1947). "The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy". Harper's Magazine.

[1] "Oral history interview with Nancy Leite". daliel.leitefamily.net. May 5, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2015.

[2] Davidson, Michael (1991). The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-521-42304-5.

[3] "Berkeley Daily Gazette". January 12, 1947. p. 11.

[4] "Berkeley Daily Gazette". May 4, 1950. p. 8.

[5] Brady, Mildred (April 1947). "The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy". Harper's Magazine.

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